A friendship betrayed

If animals could talk and march, we would by now be contending with a huge protest – and justifiably so. Every evil phenomenon is named after some animal. Animals are carriers of the most terrible of diseases. When we take any action that is meant to reverse a bad situation, we draw from the jungle some imagery to convey our message. When we are angry with a public figure we name our pets after him. The tortoise is notorious for being deceitful in Yoruba folklore. But animals are supposed to be our cousins; our closest friends. What have they done wrong?

The other day when the First Lady – sorry; I don’t wish to live in the past – the President’s wife spoke of hyenas and jackals in the corridors of power, many were wondering how those dreaded creatures left their comfortable abode in the woods to invade the hallowed seat of power. She said the lion king was on the way back to drive them out.

Mrs Aisha Buhari was only using the symbolism of the animal world to describe the power game that was unknown to those far from the scene of action. Now that the lion is back and roaring, are the hyenas and jackals still at work? Who are they? Animals in human skin (God bless Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s soul)? What is their modus operandi? Who are their backers? What is their aim?

What is their role in the bickering between Minister of State Ibe Kachikwu and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) boss Maikanti Baru?

Kachikwu, by the way, seems to have shot himself in the foot, with that sensational letter. If he couldn’t see the President, why was he sitting tight in office? Are his explosive allegations still valid now that the NNPC has laid bare the facts of the matter, which our dutiful senators are threatening to probe?

A source close to the Villa confided in me the other day that hyenas and jackals truly exist in the seat of power. The only place they have not infiltrated is the “other room”. Again, who are they?

This is indeed a failure of reporting, of which this reporter is also guilty.

When the military felt that kidnapping, armed robbery and such detestable criminal activities were getting out of hand in the Southeast, it launched Operation Python Dance I. All was quiet – for a while.

Then came Operation Python Dance II. Despite the army’s strident explanation that the exercise was to rid the Southeast of criminals, the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB), now outlawed, claimed that it was all targeted at it and its leader Nnamdi Kanu – where in the world is he? Soldiers and IPOB activists clashed. It was bloody. Heads were smashed and limbs broken.

No surprise there. What is to be expected when pythons dance? Even in a circus, a python is not a spectator’s toy. It won’t dance for nothing; its dance is a dance of death.

Kanu, you may wish to recall, had boasted before the “python” slithered its way to his community: “By the time we finish dealing with the enemies in the zoo, there will be none left to tell the story.”

Where is the zoo? Who are the animals? The insolence was so much that all that was left was for the python to dance. Since it did, Kanu has not been seen in public. Except for some tepid statements, IPOB has largely been quiet.

As part of the exercise, the military launched a series of medical missions to attend to many who lack access to good health care. Then, there was commotion everywhere. Parents stormed schools to fetch their children. The story was that the Federal Government had unleashed soldiers on the people who were to be forcibly injected with the monkey pox virus. All attempts by the government to explain that no evil was intended failed to convince the public.

By the way, monkey pox is another ailment that broke out in Bayelsa State. One of the three patients in the state has committed suicide, we are told. It all sounded strange and people were wondering: another disease borne by an animal? Bush meat vendors and lovers of such delicacies have again been put in disarray. A replay of the Ebola hoopla.

Undeterred, the military launched its Operation Crocodile Smile in the Southwest. We are yet to hear of any casualty, not even among those fellows who have found a huge fortune in kidnapping people for ransom and their cousins who rob homes and seize the highways. Now many are asking: “When will this crocodile begin to smile?”

But the commotion has begun. Parents were withdrawing their kids from schools in Ondo State on Tuesday after it was rumoured that they were going to be vaccinated against some diseases, including monkey pox. The rumour mongers were at work in Kwara State yesterday. There was panic among residents when the false news went round that kids were to be forcibly vaccinated.

I recall my undergraduate days in Benin City. I woke up one sunny morning after a hangover to get some water from the big drum we all fetched from in the backyard of my friend’s mother’s home. That simple routine suddenly turned into a screaming and dashing flight back to the bedroom.

As I dipped a bowl into the drum, a crocodile leapt up from the cubicle that housed the drum. I couldn’t wait to see that its huge mouth had been tightly held together by a thick rope. I flung the bucket and rushed in, panting.

Roused from sleep in an unusual manner, my friend sat up and said: “Bob, wetin dey pursue you?” After catching my breath, I replied: “Ol’ boy, I found a crocodile in the backyard.” Emma was smiling. Softly, he said: “Oh. My mama wan make Olokun.” The crocodile was to be sacrificed to the river god to ward off evil and bring good fortune. I was stunned.

In the heat of the ebola palaver, animals were indicted as the carrier of the lethal ailment. Hunters and bush meat vendors were sent out of business. When the noise subsided, we went back to our old ways. Were all the animals in the land vaccinated? Was it just a case of giving a dog a bad name to hang it?

When the President returned from his medical vacation, he could not work from his office, which was to be renovated after rodents, cockroaches and their ilk had messed up the place.

Even a presidential office could not command some respect from animals. The joke was all over the place that the man nobody could displace had been stopped by mere rodents.

Who unleashed the rodents? The jackals and hyenas? I am surprised the Senate has not deemed it fit to probe this glaring executive dereliction. Are they waiting for a replay of George Orwell’s Animal Farm before moving?

It is a busy season for our distinguished senators, I understand. Some are busy probing Senator Hamma Isah Misau’s allegations of financial impropriety and concupiscence against police chief Ibrahim Idris. Others are threatening to probe the $25b contracts row.

Even then, they need to spare a thought for the role of animals in our socio-political development.

President Putin recently got a puppy as a birthday gift from President Berdymukhamedov of Turkmenistan, who grabbed the poor dog by the scruff and lifted it up. Putin cuddled the animal like a baby. A pro-Kremlin journalist, according to a Times of London report, contrasted the Central Asian dictator’s stern handling of the dog with the Russian leader’s softer approach.

A radio analyst even saw an allegory before the Russian presidential election in March. He said: “Such a handover of the puppy from Asiatic cruelty to European tenderness can be interpreted as make the right choice and you will receive fatherly care, after all we could do it differently… .”

Former Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini had a pet lion. President Tito, formerly of Yugoslavia, kept a cheetah, among other animals.

A friend sent me this last week: “Chicken pox, bird flu, lassa fever, ebola, monkey pox, python dance, crocodile smile; have Nigerians in any way offended the gods of the animal kingdom?”

I really don’t know if we have betrayed our friendship with animals. But a piece of advice: Let our men of power begin to acquire pets. That way, animals may be kind to us, especially now when the best of our hospitals are broke, lacking cotton wool, syringes, hand gloves, bandages, and all such vital tools of medicine.